The single subject which is addressed most frequently in my poetry is - the swimming pool.  I wish my muse was a little more glamorous and academically acceptable, but my thirty-minute daily swim is a time when my mind is concentrated and a strange form of introspection takes place!
          My statutory cup of tea after my swim is a time when I take out my note book and write something, anything, in the hope that it might be of use later.
          Swimming in a public pool is a social activity which has as many rules and rituals as the Tea Ceremony.  From entering the reception area to changing, swimming, showering and dressing there are a whole series of 'ways of doing' which are as complex as they are pointless!  But they exist and I am prepared to bet that most people get dressed and undressed in a certain order; they shower in a certain way; they have their own swimming style and they interact clothed/bathing costume/naked in a set series of ways.  I feel that such things are worthy of note.
          The following poem was provoked because, irritatingly, there was not an empty lane for me to swim in and I had to share with another swimmer.  I am reminded of an old Ben Elton comedy routine about the need that people have to get a double seat to themselves when travelling on a train.  It's the same sort of thing in a swimming pool.
           This poem, if it survives the process of editing and drafting, will form part of 'Flesh Can Be Bright' to be published in the autumn, in the 'Swimming' section!

Crawl

Strokes that range

outside the body’s width

are territorial.

The bulldozer of butterfly, and

breaststroke’s lazy sweep.

Drifting, diagonals, unfocussed back

stroke, and the dawdling

of the rest.

They claim a space,

that breaches borders

set, unseen, between

the plastic floats.

The compact swimmer,

narrow groove confined,

may co-exist with ease

within a single lane

with all like-minded

souls, and pass,

untroubling, untouched

along the way

to meet the edge

and turn and seek

again something

the same and different.

The problem with poems like this, as I see it, is wondering whether this stands alone as a poem or whether it needs to be with other poems on a similar subject.  I hope that the specifics of swimming do not restrict the meaning of the poem and that it reaches outwards and makes some sort of point that can be appreciated by non-swimmers as well.

          To be frank, I am not sure that this poem makes it out of the water.  But I will return in time and look through it again with a more critical eye!